before the world dies at my door
by bellmare
Summary: he will never be part of her triumvirate of hope, emptiness and despair - but it means something, somewhere, to be part of her plan. —Adachi/Yosuke/Izanami.


**For the Persona 4 kink meme on Livejournal. **

**Spoilers for the True Ending. Warnings for Oedipal themes, slight bloodplay and breathplay, a totally unhealthy relationship between three totally not-fully-healthy-in-the-head individuals and dubcon. **

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><p>With her comes fog and the pale, misty emptiness of the unknown. He knows he isn't her first choice, not by far—she tells him as much, not in words but by action, by the scornful curve of her brittle smile as she strokes his cheek and appraises him with eyes the colour of death and violence, blank gaze saying <em>you're not the one<em>.

Ordinary. Extraordinary. He doesn't know – or care – which one he is, now. He only wants her, wants to feel needed, even if he shouldn't have a place in her scheme. He's proud of being her pawn, even if he isn't her king—it's better than not being a piece for her to toy with, better by far than being nothing, doing nothing.

"Your betrayal will be the worst of all," she purrs, and oh, her arms feel so cold when they circle his neck and her fingers brush against his column of his throat and press against his chin, tilting his head back towards her lips. "Just as his was the worst of all for me."

Adachi hisses, snakelike, and slides from his seat, taking slow, loping steps towards them. Izanami's grip tightens, a spasmodic shudder which clenches her fingers around his neck—and then she smiles as Adachi presses his forehead against hers and winds an arm behind her head, forcing her into a kiss which is all teeth and cruelty and hatred.

When he watches them, he knows he's being used—but then and again, that's nothing new. Better to be used by a goddess than by cold-eyed girls, shallow and mocking and vainglorious. He's not part of her triumvirate of emptiness, despair and hope, but it means something, somewhere, to be part of her plan.

"What do you want from me?" he croaks, feeling the overwhelming urge to reach up, to grab and claw and push Adachi – fucking _Adachi_ – away from her.

Her nails scratch against his skin as she pulls back from Adachi. Her gown feels like silk against his palms, insubstantial as smoke. "You know what to do," she hums as she bends to kiss him, lips cool against his own.

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><p>The thing is, he'll never be strong enough to go through with it, because damn it, Souji is his <em>friend<em> and friends don't stab one another in the back like that. Every single time, he wants to say something, to sidle up to Souji and say, _hey, leader, guess what, you've been on the wrong trail all this while_, and when he turns to him and just stares with his pale, pale eyes Yosuke will only smile and say, _I got you, didn't I? Fooled everyone right to the end._

Only, he can't—the words dry up at the back of his throat when they make their way through another floor of Magatsu Inaba, and each time Souji gives him a faint half-smile which could mean anything, from _well done, partner, _to _hey, just a little longer, let's just keep holding on_.

Every night he goes home feeling sick to the pit of his stomach, empty and drained despite the adrenaline which continues to pump through his system, keeping him up until dusk bleeds to dawn and it's time to drag himself to school again for another day of meaningless study, another day of purposeless dungeon-crawling. Every night, he runs the shower as loud as he can and hopes nobody can hear him retching and heaving, trying to flush the memory of a goddess of death and despair with her hands clasped around his shoulders, whispering curses into his ears.

His shadow was right and wrong. He hates the world, but he hates himself the most—for being weak enough to be led astray, for being weak enough to betray Souji and everyone else's trust, for being too weak to be able to admit to what he's done, for being every bit as weak as Adachi and succumbing to all his fucking petty insecurities.

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><p>This time, he isn't dreaming when he wanders too far from the group, when shifting floors separate them in endless pathways of rust-red and eroded asphalt. This time, they're both there, the goddess and her pet, and she's like a beacon of white in Adachi's bloodstained world; everything about her is so pristine, so untouchable, except for her eyes—hellion eyes, lioness eyes, dull as river-stones.<p>

"Susano-O," she murmurs, and something inside of him stirs at the recognition, sending a thrill of mingled fear and exhilaration down his spine. "Have you come to take your place alongside me at last?"

Next to her, Adachi snarls, sharp and feral, shadow-bright eyes gleaming with the cunning sheen of a cat's. He doesn't look so harmless now in his own world, all angles and harsh lines, dull yellow eyes reflecting nothing but the goddess he kneels by. "You don't need anyone," he spits from between his teeth, lazily rising, coat sliding sloppily off his shoulders. Yosuke can see the shadow of his gun tucked in its holster, barrel glinting sleek and black in the corpse-light. "You certainly don't need a brat like him."

When she smiles, there's a brittle edge to it, as though something in her wants to snap. For a single moment, she's not beautiful anymore and the illusion disperses just enough for him to see her true face, death and decay lurking beneath the surface of her skin. Her fingers slip through the knot of Adachi's tie and then she pulls, so hard and fast it takes them all by surprise, until Adachi's struggling and hacking out hoarse, gasping breaths, a twisted smile with far too many teeth creeping across his face.

"He was the only one who mourned me," she says in a voice which turns his blood to ice. "He is far worthier of my time than you are."

Adachi staggers when she releases him, dropping to all fours as she pads towards Yosuke. She's like a ghost, silent and ethereal and out of the world, pale and gray and faded. She smells of storms and ash, of the sea on a cold winter morning; she tastes like smoke and steel and bones and death, harsh against the blood-and-rust of Magatsu Inaba.

"I had her first," Adachi sneers as he prowls closer, trailing in the goddess's wake. "She was mine, mine, mine." The bones of his wrists jut out at sharp, unnatural angles as he lifts his hands, yanking his wrinkled red tie over his head. Yosuke watches with hooded eyes as he loosens the buttons of his shirt, nails dragging across his skin, snagging on the creased fabric. "Not yours. Not Seta's. Not that spineless fool Namatame's. _Mine_."

"And yet you forsook me," Izanami murmurs into the mist, her voice a malediction. "… Izanagi."

The laugh he barks out reminds Yosuke of old bones rattling across aged wood, hollow and lifeless. "How does it feel, Hanamura? To be second best at everything? Second fiddle to the new kid, always destined to be the right-hand man but nothing else. Second to little old me, preferred least by the goddess, a throwaway decision made in the spur of the moment? How does it feel to know you will never be first?"

The breath leaves his lungs when Adachi kicks him at the back of his knees and he tumbles and falls, folding into Izanami's embrace. Her skin is cold, colder than the grave, colder than a dead-winter chill, her fingertips idly stroking his eyelids as his head lolls over the crook of her elbow. "Son of man," she croons into his ear as Adachi circles behind him, tearing strips of garish-yellow police tape with his teeth and winds them around his hands, hard enough to dig into his skin, hard enough to leave sickly red weals. "_My_ son," she hums as Adachi slips his tie over his head and around his neck, frayed cotton against his Adam's apple.

The knot tightens. He jerks and twists like a hooked fish, flinching away from her touch – but it's useless, so useless, because she's got him pinned to the ground like a bug on a collector's tray and her eyes are cold and distant as gathering clouds as she straddles him, hands over his chest, palms pressing against his ribs. "Don't fight me," she hisses and he can almost taste the venom in her flat, flat voice as she bows her head to his and kisses him, fiercely enough to bruise. "Don't fight us. Don't fight yourself."

She pulls away as Adachi's hands grip his jaw and tilts his face up and back, forcing their mouths together in a parody of Izanami's affection. His first instinct is to recoil, to push and fight, but his shadow – no, Susano-O – is stirring, commanding him to submit, to accept. He bites down instinctively and shivers at the taste of blood as Adachi growls and pulls, until stars swim before his eyes and his vision blurs, blackness eating at the periphery of his sight. Pressure on his chest tells him that Izanami is placing her weight on her hands, leaning forwards as Adachi strains towards her and throws his free arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Anger rises like bile at the back of his throat when he watches them; Adachi smirks lopsidedly at him and pulls away, face flushed, chest rising and falling with irregular breaths.

Cool hands brush against his belt and then roam upwards, palming him through the fabric of his shirt. Izanami. Adachi abandons his makeshift noose and wraps his hands around Yosuke's neck, glaring down at him with wide amber eyes as though steeling himself for something.

"Afraid?" Yosuke taunts, hating the tightness of his voice and the shortness of his breath. "Scared she won't want you any more if you hurt me? That she'll throw you away if you don't play nice?"

The blood pounds in his head; his skull feels like it's going to explode. He can feel the veins in his neck pulsing feverishly, tendons taut as he struggles against Adachi's vicegrip; his nails dig and chafe and split the surface of his skin, crescents of red welling the harder he pushes. Izanami strokes him through his pants, one hand splayed heavily over his chest until he can feel his bones ready to give way beneath her weight, until he's certain his lungs will cave in and she will crush his heart. Their eyes are hypnotic, mesmerising – red and yellow, blood and gold; he can almost forget the dizziness which rolls sluggishly through his brain, can almost forgive the goddess for the attention she lavishes on her lapdog.

Adachi's face twists into something malign, something ugly and inhuman and enraged. He pushes harder, palms flush against cartilage, thumbs locked against his windpipe. _Crack, crack_, go the joints in his neck as he attempts to wrench himself free and Izanami's hand tenses around him, palm still cool against his heated skin.

"Me? Afraid?" There's a manic edge in Adachi's voice—it's far too jaunty and gleeful, filled to the brim with false cheer and overwhelming danger. Whether it's because of the lack of blood in his head or not, he can feel the familiar pressure building as Izanami's hands quicken, fingertips ghosting over him one moment and then gripping hard the next, her hair tickling his nose as she steals his breath with a final kiss, scarlet eyes boring unblinkingly into his. He's half-embarrassed at the sounds he makes at the back of his throat, faint and ragged and gasping as he arches towards her only to be held down by Adachi – fucking _Adachi_ – with Izanami smiling sharp as knives—but it's worth it, every single bit, for what awaits him at the end.

"Never," the detective laughs, high and crazed and giddy. He ducks his head too quickly and pain explodes in Yosuke's mouth and nose at the impact—but this time he can taste more than his own spit and Adachi's blood, this time there's rain and rot and the bitterness of bile. He laps it up until Adachi's forgotten his fury and his fingers loosen, until he can think clearly again and each breath feels like the blade of a knife slicing into his lungs, cold and clean—

—and then his world's tilting and dissolving as Adachi releases him and he comes harder than he's ever done before—but the only thing which runs through his mind is the overwhelming guilt, the sting of betrayal and a vision of facing the team and having to see the looks on their faces when he turns on them and cuts them down one by one using everything he's learnt about them in the past year.

Izanami laughs softly, brittle as ice and glass. "Yes," she agrees, as though she can read his mind, lips brushing against the shell of his ear. "Exactly like that."

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><p>He can barely meet Souji's eyes when they regroup on the third floor; the rest of the team are skittish and uneasy from the separation, and rightly so, after what he's going to do to them when they reach the end of Magatsu Inaba.<p>

"Um," he begins, discreetly attempting to pull his sleeves as far down as they can go over his hands, resisting the urge to arrange the collar of his uniform. "S-sorry about that. Should've watched where we were going, then maybe I wouldn't have gotten lost for so long, h-heh."

"It's all right," Souji says quietly as Yukiko takes a half-step forwards, frowning, fan held before her, ready to heal.

There are some things Amaterasu will never be able to mend. He ducks his head and squares his shoulders before Yukiko can get closer, before Susano-O's animosity can grow and expel itself. His hands shake and he almost drops his knives as he licks unconsciously at his lips, wondering if they're still spotted with Adachi's blood. "I'm fine," he presses more insistently when the others share sidelong looks, concern and exasperation battling for dominance on their faces. At last, Souji nods, a short dip of his head and the others shrug – and Yosuke hates him just a little more, that everyone follows his lead just like that and doesn't question him – and they start talking about heading back for the day, like there's nothing to worry about, like the end of the year isn't approaching like a runaway train and there isn't a snake in their midst—

"Let's go, partner," Souji murmurs with a faint grin, clapping him on the shoulder as he fishes out a Goho-M from his pocket.

Yosuke can feel his throat constricting, can feel the purple-red bruises smarting and pulsing in time with the beat of his heart as he forces a smile to his face. "Good answer."


End file.
